BLEAK HOUSE TO BECOME BBC 'SOAP' The BBC is producing a soap-style version of Charles Dickens' classic novel Bleak House. It will be adapted into twice-weekly episodes by writer Andrew Davies, who wrote the BBC's popular adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice. Costume dramas have traditionally been shown in weekly episodes, broadcast across several weeks. Dickens' novels were first published in instalments with gripping cliffhangers to entice people to buy the next one. Davies, who also adapted Victorian lesbian drama Tipping the Velvet for BBC Two, said the written style of Bleak House lent itself to the format of shorter TV episodes. "It'll enable us to give a much fuller rendering of the book than we're normally able to in a classic adaptation," he said. Characters Davies said the adaptation could produce up to 20 episodes. He said: "There are so many characters, there's such a lot of life, such a number of criss-crossing plots that it would be interesting to do it in a new way, having a lot of characters in the background of each other's stories. "We've been working out ways of getting a good sort of cliff-hanger ending at the end of half-hour episodes." Davies has written "a few pages" of the first draft, and production is not due to begin for several months. Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3333511.stm

The star of BBC One's new drama Bleak House believes it can break the mould and change how viewers think about TV. Anna Maxwell Martin, 27, who plays heroine Esther in the Victorian thriller, believes viewers will enjoy the soap-style scheduling. Rather than screening the eight-hour serial on Sunday nights the BBC has decided to show it after EastEnders. It is split into half hour episodes with cliff-hangers just as writer Charles Dickens intended. "Bleak House is really accessible to all kinds of people. What is the point in making television that doesn't challenge viewers?" she told the BBC News website. "There are some things you need to think about but it isn't confusing," she added. "If people don't want to think then they can switch over to the latest piece of reality television. It is doing something different, it's on a big scale and it has a brilliant cast." Bit of grit TV writer Andrew Davies has adapted the original book for the screen and made Esther much less sugary sweet than she appeared in the original. "I don't know whether modern audiences would find Esther very believable, she has a bit more grit than the way Dickens wrote her," said Maxwell Martin. The drama, which cost £750,000 an hour, has a cast featuring Charles Dance, Gillian Anderson and Nathaniel Parker. "It was overwhelming," said Maxwell Martin. "I was constantly rendered mute by all these people who came in to the make-up trailer like Anne Reid and Phil Davis. As you watch it a great British screen legend pops up one after another." Bleak House, BBC One, 2000 BST, Thursday. Part two BBC One Friday, 2000BST Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4382586.stm